I'll support Hiromichi Tanaka regardless, How about You?

[Cairdeas]

Personally, I'd like to see Tanaka forced to produce a Single Player Open World RPG with a Western Developer using a mix of Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and other SE systems all blended together. Let him have a learning experiance and then give him the reigns of another major MMO.

[Rowyne]

I think we can all agree on these two major points:

* Final Fantasy XIV was released too soon
* There was no acknowledgement from SE that they were listening to player concerns.

Guess what? We can say the same things about FFXI. From what I understand, FFXI's first year in Japan was horrible. And SE was this mysterious entity from which no communication flowed, in or out.

That means that they made the same mistake twice. But this time, they couldn't hide behind the quiet Japanese gamers or a young MMO market with few choices.

So who's to blame? We'll probably never know for sure.

But I do know for sure that Tanaka leaves a bad impression any time he's faced with the public. These are the kinds of things we had to deal with during the Tanaka administration:

* When interviewed by MikeB of the BFF report at last year's E3 why a jump feature, considered by many to be a basic function of modern MMOs, was not included in the game, he just laughed it off and said it wasn't important or needed. (Source)
* When asked if we would get official forums, we were told it would be a waste of time and effort since no one on the dev team speaks English.
* Official translations of info were slim and slow to come. Even patch notes. He said he expected we could rely on 3rd party websites for information.
* When the fatigue system was discovered and information was not offered, the translations he expected us to scrounge up on our own prompted an ugly remark on Twitter: "Foreign sites have lots of false rumors. They throw together rumors and fabricate remarks." It sent the wrong message, and many many people took offense to this (me included).

Should I go on?

Whether or not Tanaka is responsible for FFXIV's premature release is honestly irrelevant to me. He was rude, inconsiderate, and had no grasp of how to even properly present the game or information to its customers.

So, enter Yoshi-P. We get official forums, swiftly translated information, regularly occurring Letters From The Producer, and someone who actually takes our concerns seriously. He's in touch with the needs of the current MMO market.

If Tanaka were ever put back in charge, that would most likely be the final straw for me.

[Ilean]

If Tanaka were ever put back in charge, that would most likely be the final straw for me.

Word

/morechars

[Leeloo]

* When interviewed by MikeB of the BFF report at last year's E3 why a jump feature, considered by many to be a basic function of modern MMOs, was not included in the game, he just laughed it off and said it wasn't important or needed. (Source)

I would've laughed too.

[Rowyne]

I would've laughed too.

Whether or not you agree with a jump feature, reacting that way is seriously bad PR and a turnoff to potential customers. It was handled inappropriately.

Would it really have killed him to say, "We don't currently feel it's an essential gameplay mechanic, but we're open to feedback from our players about it."

[Xmbei]

* When the fatigue system was discovered and information was not offered, the translations he expected us to scrounge up on our own prompted an ugly remark on Twitter: "Foreign sites have lots of false rumors. They throw together rumors and fabricate remarks." It sent the wrong message, and many many people took offense to this (me included).

But was he wrong? I think not look at all the useless threads of false information we all make due to people speculating on no info what so ever. That is all I have seen and I am american... He had every right to say that because I see it every 2 min on these forums or other sites.

[Leeloo]

Whether or not you agree with a jump feature, reacting that way is seriously bad PR and a turnoff to potential customers.

To many who take themselves too seriously, probably. I get tired of what they're doing now though. Having to walk on eggshells, say the politically correct answers to everything as to not chase anyone off. I much rather they laugh at some of the suggestions/questions and say "Dude, no..."

They're damned if they do, damned if they don't either way. They're bound to piss off some uptight group of players no matter what they do.

[Ilean]

I would've laughed too.

Good, because it worked great for him.

[Rowyne]

But was he wrong? I think not look at all the useless threads of false information we all make due to people speculating on no info what so ever. That is all I have seen and I am american... He had every right to say that because I see it every 2 min on these forums or other sites.

I'm also an American, and it felt like he was calling us a bunch of dirty lying foreigners. At that time, the Japanese were getting information, and we got nothing. And Tanaka had no plans to change that flow of information.

Yoshi-P has requested that we refrain from making translations ourselves. And I've never once been offended, because he made a respectful request without insulting us.

Again, Tanaka handled things all wrong.

[Xmbei]

lol I know it sounded it in my post, but i don't disagree with you in the manner he handled the situation, but he is right about foriegn sites making up their own interpretation of things and when the foriegn blogsphere posts something wrong and we don't see it we get angry at the company not at the poor translator hyping us up over nothing. We do it all the time. This is why we get answer's like "we are/will looking into it" as well I think so that we don't just go on our own tangents making things up interpreting those answers, of course we still do that because that is what we do best...